Oh dear, some of these folks aren’t the brightest CFL’s in the room.
Readers may remember this famous Penn and Teller video from 2006 where they get well meaning (but non thinking) people to sign up to ban “dihydrogen monoxide” (DHMO), which is an “evil” chemical found in our lakes, rivers, oceans, and even our food!
Yeah, they signed up to ban water. Now watch the video from the Cancun climate conference, you’d think some of these folks would have enough science background (from their work in complex climate issues) to realize what they are signing, but sadly, no.
Some people will sign anything that includes phrases like, ”global effort,” “international community,” and “planetary.” Such was the case at COP 16, this year’s United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Cancun, Mexico.
This year, CFACT students created two mock-petitions to test U.N. Delegates. The first asked participants to help destabilize the United States economy, the second to ban water.
The first project, entitled “Petition to Set a Global Standard” sought to isolate and punish the United States of America for defying the international community, by refusing to bite, hook, line and sinker on the bait that is the Kyoto Protocol. The petition went so far as to encourage the United Nations to impose tariffs and trade restrictions on the U.S. in a scheme to destabilize the nation’s economy. Specifically, the scheme seeks to lower the U.S. GDP by 6% over a ten year period, unless the U.S. signs a U.N. treaty on global warming.
This would be an extremely radical move by the United Nations. Even so, radical left-wing environmentalists from around the world scrambled eagerly to sign.
The second project was as successful as the first. It was euphemistically entitled “Petition to Ban the Use of Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO)” (translation water). It was designed to show that if official U.N. delegates could be duped by college students into banning water, that they could essentially fall for anything, including pseudo-scientific studies which claim to show that global warming is man-caused.
Despite the apparently not-so-obvious reference to H2O, almost every delegate that collegian students approached signed their petition to ban that all too dangerous substance, which contributes to the greenhouse effect, is the major substance in acid rain, and is fatal if inhaled.
Perhaps together, the footage associated with these two projects will illustrate to mainstream America the radical lengths many current U.N. delegates are willing to go to carry out an agenda no more ethical, plausible or practical than the banning water.
If all of these “experts” (you know what an expert is) which to ban carbon dioxide output, they can help by not talking. Even better, stop breathing!
Perhaps we should ban carbonated soft drinks.
I wonder how much carbon dioxide they produced by flying to Cancun. It really is a nice resort area. Although I think Playa del Carmen (a little to the south) is nicer. I’m sure they made great sacrifices to stay in Cancun.
Sam
December 11, 2010 8:19 am
A girl at our uni tried to convince people to sign a petition against CO2 on the grounds that it would leave earth and extinguish the sun. (Yes, extinguish) She then said that after putting out the sun, it would return and cause further global warming.
This is what happens when people with no scientific knowledge are put in charge of scientific policy.
Larry Sheldon
December 11, 2010 10:20 am
Sam’s item is way too far fetched to be true, so I am convinced that it happened.
At least we can infer that she stayed awake in the “first response–fire extinguishers” meeting.
anon
December 11, 2010 3:08 pm
Yes, this is pervasive. As a person steps away from the narrow range of expertise that they exercise day after day, where there is at least some chance, that at least some of their beliefs, are eventually scraped against reality, their competence plummets rapidly. A professor outside of their subfield looks like a student. Outside of their field, like a high-school student. Or grade-school. Thus repeated media stories like “OMG, Harvard Business School graduates don’t know how the seasons work!”. What part of business school graduate students having a middle-school understanding of astronomy comes as a surprise? Headshake. Not only is the drop-off more severe than people expect, but people rarely realize when they themselves have stepped off the cliff. All it takes is a little flaw – a bit of nuttiness, an insufficiently critical community, an absence of humility, to go from being a Nobel-prize physicist, to being a Nobel-prize physicist who believes in telepathic dogs. The two look almost identical. But the integrity is lost. Not a few professors emeriti get that one extra step too far disconnected from their field’s checks and balances, and go a bit nutty.
Now, let’s get back to discussing climate change.
Brian H
December 11, 2010 11:10 pm
anon;
Yes, that quite nicely explains why most scientists are liberals. Their understanding of societies and the motivations of the humans who drive them thither and yon is grade-school level, at best.
Larry Sheldon
December 12, 2010 10:04 am
I seem to have misplaced the citation supporting that assertion–or do you know all scientists well enough to know that?
These people aren’t just mis-educated, they are evil. I saw the look on one guys face when the petitioner told him it would reduce our GDP by 6%. He smiled and said that he was for that. They would like us to be in dark ages poverty, closer to the Earth, in the mud.
Brian of Moorabbin, AUS
December 13, 2010 6:05 pm
The only problem with COH16 at CanTcun is that the vowels are transposed… ¬_¬
Rob says:
December 21, 2010 at 2:37 am
The problem with your post is you mix fact and opinion. Clearly you can refute a fact, but an opinion is not necessarily a fact, and therefore is not subject to the same rules as facts when refuting them.
Once you can understand the difference between fact and opinion and what is the basis of both, your posts will tend to make more sense, instead of bordering on hysterical rantings.
Larry Sheldon
December 21, 2010 7:35 am
I’m not sure what the point is–but the “physics of AGW” are a pretty unlikely religion.
Or are you talking abut what I used to see on signs that also mentioned “colonics”?
I use the word believe when discussing things that qare taught in church.
For facts, I use words like “observe”, “understand”, “verified” and “demonstrated”.
Larry Sheldon
December 21, 2010 9:22 am
I’ll confess candidly that I don’t accept anything in the Huffington Post without additional support. I’m guessing that their definition of “scientist” includes a lot of squishy people that abuse the word.
Rob
December 22, 2010 1:09 am
@PhilJourdan said:
“Once you can understand the difference between fact and opinion and
what is the basis of both, your posts will tend to make more sense, instead
of bordering on hysterical rantings.”
Had a bad day ?
I made ONE post here, refering to a statement that Monckton made in public, which many people believed, that was clearly NOT factual (to put it mildly), as Politifact revealed in detail in their analysis.
There is very little ‘opinion’ (if any) in Politifact’s analysis.
So your ad hominem of “bordering on hysterical rantings” seems at least quite misplaced.
Apparently you do not know what ad hominem is either. And one post or 100 does not change the nature of each post. My post was factual, yours borders on hysteria again. Whether I had a bad day or not, yours seems to be constant.
DSW
December 30, 2010 8:52 pm
Say what you want about the “gottcha” nature of DHMO petitions, they knew exactly what they were signing to wreck the US economy. Time to kick the UN off US soil.
If all of these “experts” (you know what an expert is) which to ban carbon dioxide output, they can help by not talking. Even better, stop breathing!
Perhaps we should ban carbonated soft drinks.
I wonder how much carbon dioxide they produced by flying to Cancun. It really is a nice resort area. Although I think Playa del Carmen (a little to the south) is nicer. I’m sure they made great sacrifices to stay in Cancun.
A girl at our uni tried to convince people to sign a petition against CO2 on the grounds that it would leave earth and extinguish the sun. (Yes, extinguish) She then said that after putting out the sun, it would return and cause further global warming.
This is what happens when people with no scientific knowledge are put in charge of scientific policy.
Sam’s item is way too far fetched to be true, so I am convinced that it happened.
At least we can infer that she stayed awake in the “first response–fire extinguishers” meeting.
Yes, this is pervasive. As a person steps away from the narrow range of expertise that they exercise day after day, where there is at least some chance, that at least some of their beliefs, are eventually scraped against reality, their competence plummets rapidly. A professor outside of their subfield looks like a student. Outside of their field, like a high-school student. Or grade-school. Thus repeated media stories like “OMG, Harvard Business School graduates don’t know how the seasons work!”. What part of business school graduate students having a middle-school understanding of astronomy comes as a surprise? Headshake. Not only is the drop-off more severe than people expect, but people rarely realize when they themselves have stepped off the cliff. All it takes is a little flaw – a bit of nuttiness, an insufficiently critical community, an absence of humility, to go from being a Nobel-prize physicist, to being a Nobel-prize physicist who believes in telepathic dogs. The two look almost identical. But the integrity is lost. Not a few professors emeriti get that one extra step too far disconnected from their field’s checks and balances, and go a bit nutty.
Now, let’s get back to discussing climate change.
anon;
Yes, that quite nicely explains why most scientists are liberals. Their understanding of societies and the motivations of the humans who drive them thither and yon is grade-school level, at best.
“most scientists are liberals”
I seem to have misplaced the citation supporting that assertion–or do you know all scientists well enough to know that?
REPLY: here ya go http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/10/only-six-percent-of-scien_n_229382.html
These people aren’t just mis-educated, they are evil. I saw the look on one guys face when the petitioner told him it would reduce our GDP by 6%. He smiled and said that he was for that. They would like us to be in dark ages poverty, closer to the Earth, in the mud.
The only problem with COH16 at CanTcun is that the vowels are transposed… ¬_¬
This petition shows again that people can be persuaded to believe any fallacy, as long as it is worded right.
For example, that IF our president would sign the Copenhagen treaty, that he would sign away our freedom, democracy and prosperity away forever.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/oct/20/christopher-monckton/british-climate-skeptic-says-copenhagen-treaty-thr/
4%? 40%? Doesn’t matter. If there were enough to make videos of, there are enough to prove that we are in deep deep doo-doo.
Rob says:
December 21, 2010 at 2:37 am
The problem with your post is you mix fact and opinion. Clearly you can refute a fact, but an opinion is not necessarily a fact, and therefore is not subject to the same rules as facts when refuting them.
Once you can understand the difference between fact and opinion and what is the basis of both, your posts will tend to make more sense, instead of bordering on hysterical rantings.
I’m not sure what the point is–but the “physics of AGW” are a pretty unlikely religion.
Or are you talking abut what I used to see on signs that also mentioned “colonics”?
I use the word believe when discussing things that qare taught in church.
For facts, I use words like “observe”, “understand”, “verified” and “demonstrated”.
I’ll confess candidly that I don’t accept anything in the Huffington Post without additional support. I’m guessing that their definition of “scientist” includes a lot of squishy people that abuse the word.
@PhilJourdan said:
“Once you can understand the difference between fact and opinion and
what is the basis of both, your posts will tend to make more sense, instead
of bordering on hysterical rantings.”
Had a bad day ?
I made ONE post here, refering to a statement that Monckton made in public, which many people believed, that was clearly NOT factual (to put it mildly), as Politifact revealed in detail in their analysis.
There is very little ‘opinion’ (if any) in Politifact’s analysis.
So your ad hominem of “bordering on hysterical rantings” seems at least quite misplaced.
Apparently you do not know what ad hominem is either. And one post or 100 does not change the nature of each post. My post was factual, yours borders on hysteria again. Whether I had a bad day or not, yours seems to be constant.
Say what you want about the “gottcha” nature of DHMO petitions, they knew exactly what they were signing to wreck the US economy. Time to kick the UN off US soil.